February 18, 2004
From the desk of Jane Galt:Abortion or adoption?
I haven't been screamed at lately, so how about a nice post on abortion to kick things off?
Actually, it's only incidentally about abortion. I was reading this CalPundit post on abortion protesters who are evidently planning to harass clinic workers by following them to social events and protesting there, complete with grisly pictures. But I don't want to talk about that. What interested me was a side debate in the comments over whether or not one of the pro-life commenters could, as he claimed "get any number of kids adopted in this country". The pro-choice side piled derision on this statement, pointing out that there are many, many children in foster care and government homes who are having a very difficult time indeed being adopted. Though I didn't see it mentioned specifically there, most liberals I know who have expressed such opinions to me couple it with a belief that it's mostly because racist white couples want nothing but a blond, blue eyed baby to build their family.
This, however, is not the case. As it happens, I was acquainted, a few years back, with a couple that was trying to adopt; the husband was a research analyst, and his conversation on the topic was, er, excruciatingly thorough. There are a number of children in the system, disproportionately minority ones, who can't get adopted. But that isn't because they're minorities; if you'll notice, many of the couples who can't adopt here end up going to China, South America, or Africa for babies. This couple was desperate for a baby; they were happy to take any or all races. But they were stymied by the system.
The primary reason most children who are eligible for adoption can't be adopted is not that they're black; it's that they're old. Most couples (I'm sure not all) seem to be pretty flexible on race, but they don't want a kid older than two or three, certainly not one older than five. Older children mean you miss a lot of magic moments, such as first steps. Older children also often have active memories of abuse, which makes them difficult to deal with. Or they've been in institutions, collecting bad habits and emotional problems from kids who mostly grew up in extremely difficult circumstances. They are not the happy, well adjusted children that we all imagine we can raise until we actually have the little hellions.
So if couples are willing to adopt any race baby, as I (and Stephen) claimed, why are there so many old kids clogging the system?
Most of those kids have families, that's why. There are vanishingly few orphans, now that we don't have typhus epidemics or combine accidents to produce them. Whether they've been taken away from abusive, addicted or criminal parents, or given up by parents who can't cope, most prime-adoption-age children in the system have a parent or relative somewhere who is blocking the child from being snatched up by some lucky couple. By the time the relative relinquishes rights (or has them terminated by a court -- something courts are very reluctant to do), the child is eight or ten, has been tossed from foster home to foster home or institution to institution, and is not a very desireable candidate for adoption.
If those minority babies were unencumbered by legal barriers to their adoption, (and racial obstacles thrown up by activists who dislike cross-race adoptions), they would almost certainly be snatched up by couples, who currently face a years-long waiting list, and a vetting process more gruelling than being confirmed to the Supreme Court.
So the commenter is probably right; if women having abortions instead carried the fetuses to term and then offered them for adoption, they could almost certainly place each and every baby, especially with our aging population of professional women whose fertility has declined.
Does that mean that we should a) make abortion illegal or b) change the laws that keep kids from being adopted until they're old enough to have acquired a host of baggage?
No. The practical reasons for abortion have been declining steadily for a century . . . an out of wedlock baby today is a minor embarassment to most women, where a century ago it was socially, professionally, and romantically the end of her life. If we're making the case on practical grounds, either we should have made abortion illegal quite some time ago, or we should keep it legal; the argument comes down in the end to a question of whether you value the mother's right to control her own body, or the fetus's right to get born, more highly. (And isn't it more than a little repulsive, anyway, to argue that we should make abortion legal because society, after all, is better off without the people we got rid of? I've even heard, distressingly often, people implying that the fetuses themselves are somehow better off, a ludicrous argument if you try to apply it to yourself or anyone you've ever met.)
And the rules that prevent babies from being adopted are intended to make it difficult for the state to snatch people's children on the grounds that it thinks some other, richer couple would make better parents . . . a philosophy which as a libertarian I wholly endorse.
But that doesn't support the pro-choice advocates' case; presumably, if the mother doesn't want the baby, she wouldn't mind terminating her rights, which would remove any barriers to adoption into a good home. There's a reason that most of the people I know who were adopted are staunchly, even rabidly pro-life.
We live in a society that still exhibits traces of racism; people do prefer children that look like them; and we do have a large class of unfortunate children, disproportionately minorities, stuck in an exceedingly lousy system. But while it's logical for people to conclude that these things are connected, in this case, it doesn't seem to be the truth.
Posted by Jane Galt at February 18, 2004 1:50 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksOkay, I'll start it off. In my experience, which includes a relative (white) adopting a little girl (black), I can attest to the fact that a lot of government social workers (minorities themselves) firmly believe that children of a particular race should only be adopted by a member of that race. Racist? Certainly, but not in the sense that the liberal classes would have you believe.
"presumably, if the mother doesn't want the baby, she wouldn't mind terminating her rights, which would remove any barriers to adoption into a good home."
What do you think about the mother selling her rights to another person? In other words, she agrees (and contracts) with another person that, in exchange for X amount of money, she agrees not to terminate and to give up her guardianship to the other person?
"I can attest to the fact that a lot of government social workers (minorities themselves) firmly believe that children of a particular race should only be adopted by a member of that race."
I think John Stossel did a report on this some time ago; it might be in the archives at ABCnews.com.
I read the same comments thread that you did at Calpundit, and I believe you mistook a couple of offhanded cracks at a commenter that the bulk of Calpundit's commenters both disagree with and are irritated by for an argument that anyone is likely to independently make in favor of abortion rights. The rhetorical purpose of the comments you are responding to was to exhort the commenter to go away and facilitiate some adoptions rather than continuing to post, rather than to make a serious argument.
You, and that commenter, are perfectly right that a healthy newborn of whatever race whose parents have relinquished their rights is easily adoptable. I've just never seen anyone make the argument that abortion rights are necessary because otherwise the adoption market would be glutted with newborns -- if abortion is, as some think, murder, such a glut would be an insufficient reason to allow abortions, while if abortion is a morally acceptable exercise of a woman's control over her body, than such a market glut is unnecessary to justify abortion rights.
The 'adoption market glut' justification for abortion rights is easily refuted, as you just did. That's probably why it isn't a justification that anyone relies on.
But LizardBreath, the pro-choice side is littered with people complaining that pro-lifers aren't interested in what happens to the baby once it's born. What happens to the baby once its born, if the mother doesn't want it, is that it's adopted by a nice childless couple that has been carefully vetted by an adoption agency.
On another note, Jane, six days between posts? What about our needs? Jeez.
Jane Galt:
So the commenter is probably right; if women having abortions instead carried the fetuses to term and then offered them for adoption, they could almost certainly place each and every baby, especially with our aging population of professional women whose fertility has declined.
No, the commenter is not right, as you would realize if you had given this claim even a moment's serious reflection. There are over a million abortions a year in the U.S. There have been over 40 million abortions in America since Roe v. Wade. There aren't remotely enough prospective adoptive parents to adopt a million unwanted children a year, year after year, even if every one of those children was an ideal adoption candidate (newborn, white and healthy), which many or most of them certainly would not be. The idea is just ludicrous.
The disconnect that you're missing is that for some reason, arguably irrational, it is my understanding that most women who find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy and want an abortion do not regard adoption as their next best option -- instead, they are likelier to raise the unwanted child themselves.
The "people complaining that pro-lifers aren't interested in what happens to the baby once it's born" are generally complaining that pro-lifers aren't interested in problems that affect poor children being raised by their biological parents, not that there aren't available adoptive homes for healthy newborns. It's an accusation of hypocrisy, in that prolifers think that preventing the suffering of living children is less important than preventing abortions, not a justification for the necessity for abortion rights.
Contributor A - I hear liberals saying that pro-lifers / conservatives / Republicans don't care about babies once their born over and over and over again. It's a common rhetorical tactic used to argue for increased spending on welfare as well as for arguing in favor of abortion.
In the abortion debate, it's usually not brought up until after a pro-lifer says that women who don't believe they can raise their own child should have the child and put it up for adoption instead of having an abortion.
The accusation of indifference to the fate of children is well-founded. Opponents of abortion rights are very often also opponents of the expansion of welfare services to poor mothers and their children.
Opposition to the expansion of welfare services is not the same as indifference to the fate of the intended recipients, as anyone smart enough to not be a liberal would understand.
Indiscriminate provision of welfare services to "poor mothers and their children" has led to a significant increase in the number of poor mothers, and a very significant decline in the social conditions around most of those poor mothers (increased crime, worse schools, etc.).
DonP, I'm not sure that's the case, for a couple of reasons.
Some number of those abortions are medical; those fetuses would still be aborted.
I don't think race is an issue, for reasons enumerated above. Black kids are disproportionately represented among kids in the system because their parents are disproportionately poor, not because they're not wanted by someone.
Women are waiting longer and longer to have babies; as their fertility declines, demand for adoption will rise.
Many families who adopt now stop at one because of hte enormous strain involved. They might well be happy to have two, three, or more kids if the restrictions weren't so onerous.
Waitlists for adoptable kids aren't new; they were common in the forties, when women married younger, and abortions were rarer, and parental mortality was lower.
I don't know what the numbers are, exactly, but you could certainly place every kid who's likely to be aborted for non-medical reasons for the next five to ten years without a hitch.
Yep. The generosity of our welfare services explains why our crime rates are higher and our primary/secondary education system is inferior to those in the European social democracies.
But as a socialist, I'm even dumber than most liberals, so I get easily confused by these things.
Anthony:
Opposition to the expansion of welfare services is not the same as indifference to the fate of the intended recipients,
Yes it is. What alternative do you propose? Private charity? Charity is clearly utterly inadequate for preventing child poverty. That is why America has one of the highest rates of child poverty amoung the industrialized democracies.
Don P - Are you serious or are you a troll? Just because someone is not in favor of government welfare does not mean that they are motivated by animus or a lack of compassion towards the poor. You cannot reliably divine someone's motives by their policy prescriptions. For example, it is possible to argue that welfare is the result of a desire to write a check to assuage guilt rather than do the hard work necessary to solve the problem.
A) Our crime rates aren't higher than all those welfare states, LizardBreath; off the top of my head, Britain's crime rate is higher than ours for almost all categories, and I believe the mediterranean states also.
B) Our crime rate has been higher than, say, Sweden's since long before the welfare state, so the welfare state is, at best, a non-variable.
C) Our education system is not inferior from lack of spending; IIRC, we spend more per child than any other country on earth.
D) You're making my point for me. By excluding adoption as an option, the pro-choice side makes the social choice set much starker, and the abortion choice much more attractive: make abortion legal and/or increase the welfare state, or force millions of children to grow up unwanted and in poverty. The implicit justification for doing so is often that adoption "isn't a viable option" for most poor and minority children. This does not seem to actually be the case, so long as the mother is willing to terminate her rights.
Don P,
If you paid every poor unwed mother $10000.00 for every baby they had, do you think poor unwed mothers would have fewer or more babies?
Do you think a system that creates poor babies born to unwed mothers is a good system?
Jim English
Chicago
I'm willing to be educated on this issue. But I've also learned, based on things that I know quite a bit about, that Jane Galt is usually extremely misleading.
So, what I'd like to know, savants, is the age distribution of children in the U.S. foster care system, by race and ethnicity. Is it the case that too few cute and cuddly black infants are available for adoption? And are black babies simply too late to market?
Or is Jane wheeling out an anecdote from her "excruciatingly thorough" research analyst friend to mislead us all?
May the relevant statistics rule the debate.
Last time I saw any numbers on this topic bandied about, the amount of couple seeking adoption dwarfed the amount available for such. I'm not sure how Jane's age analysis figures in, though.
Decon - I don't have any relevant stats to share with you, just to observations: First, in Arizona, as in other states, the media have reported on the efforts of advocacy groups to prevent adoption outside an infants ethnic group. For example, a few years back the Navajo tribal court intervened in the adoption of a Navajo infant by a California couple. Second, even after an adoption has been made, it seems it is never over. Recall the story from a few years back where the "birth father" sought to reclaim his child that had been adopted by a couple in another state? The birth mother had given up the child for adoption, had not told anyone who the natural father was, so the natural father (who had never married the mother) had never been contacted and had never given up his parental rights. The court eventually ruled that, in effect, there had been a valid adoption of the child but that, years after the adoption, the adoption could be voided by the birth father. Who wants that kind of risk and uncertainty? Not stats to be sure, but my wife and I have had several friends who have adopted children from outside our country just to avoid these kinds of legal hassles our system invites.
It's "common knowledge" that adoption is expensive, time consuming, and difficult. Such common knowledge distorts any stats you could come up with by affecting the behavior of people who might adopt a child. My wife and I considered adoption, but our local adoption agency told us we would never get a child since we had three of our own. (Three well adjusted children. You'd think such proven success as parents would make us MORE eligible not less.) If we had fought the system, could we have adopted a child? We will never know. We opted out. I suspect, and no one can prove otherwise, that many couples just don't bother adopting becuase common knowledge has it that it so difficult.
How about Adoption.com
As of September 30, 1999, there were 568,000 children in foster care.
During the second half of FY99 (4/1/99-9/30/99), 143,000 children entered foster care.
During the second half of FY99, 122,000 children exited foster care.
The median age of children entering foster care during the second half of FY99 was 8.5 years.
The median age of children exiting foster care during the second half of FY99 was 10.4 years.
. . .
On September 30, 1999, 48 percent of the 568,000 children in foster care were in family foster homes, 26 percent were in relative foster homes, 17 percent were in group homes or institutions, 3 percent were in pre-adoptive homes, and 5 percent were in other placement types.
PERMANENCY GOALS
On September 30, 1999, 42 percent of the 568,000 children in foster care had goals of reunification, 19 percent had goals of adoption, 8 percent had goals of guardianship or custody to a relative, 5 percent had goals of emancipation, 7 percent had goals of long term foster care, and 19 percent had not yet had a permanency goal established.
Of the 122,000 children who exited foster care during the first half of FY99, 59 percent were reunified, 16 percent were adopted, 12 percent went to a legal guardian or a relative, 8 percent were emancipated, and 5 percent had other outcomes.
. . .
The median age of the children in foster care on September 30, 1998 was 9.5 years. At the end of the reporting period for 1990, the median age of children in foster care was 9.0 years.
Disclosure Statement: I am the father of an adoptee and the father-in-law of another adoptee. I am also a practicing Catholic; and, I am unalterably opposed to abortion on demand. I cannot accept the logic of ending one life unnecessarily so that another life can be more convenient, or more comfortable.
I believe that every woman's choice to have sex should always be a free choice. However, I also believe that once that choice has been made, the time for choice is over until it is time to choose whether to keep the child or to place it for adoption.
I also fail to understand why, when an unmarried woman elects to have unprotected sex, gets pregnant and keeps the child, I now have the obligation to support not only the woman but also her child(ren).
I agree with those above who believe that the children now being aborted in the US could be adopted by US parents if the babies were carried to term and they were not encumbered with the potential of future custody battles.
I also believe that many fewer "unwanted" pregnancies would occur if young girls understood the lifetime economic impact of single parenthood. Some would argue that they couldn't understand the economic facts. Demonstrably, if they become single parents, they will very quickly learn the economic facts firsthand; regrettably, too late.
The sooner we reject the "sex as sport - then abort" mentality in the US, the better.
Jane Galt:
There are around 100,000 adoptions in America each year. You are proposing to increase the supply of children needing adoption by around a factor of TEN. Show me your evidence that there are even remotely enough prospective adoptive parents to absorb this additional supply.
I'm not interested in your guesses or hopes or anecdotes ("I know a couple who blah, blah, blah..."). I'm looking for evidence. Show it to me.
From http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/ressta.html
Between 1989 and 1995, 1.7% of white women relinquished their children for adoption, dropping from 19% in 1965-1972. The rate of relinquishment among black women has consistently been under 2% for unmarried births and is now less than 1%. The rate of relinquishment among Latina unmarried women has also been consistently at or under 2%. (National Center for Health Statistics, 1999).
In 1992, the last year for which total adoption statistics were available, 127,441 children of all races and nationalities were adopted in the United States (National Adoption Information Clearinghouse, 1996).
In 1995, about 232,000 married women had taken steps toward adopting a child. Only about 100,000 have applied to an agency in order to adopt
There are approximately 5 to 6 adoption seekers for every actual adoption. (National Center For Health Statistics, 1997; Hollinger, 1996).
The age at which these children were adopted was as follows:
Under 1 year: 2%
1-5 Years: 46%
6-10 Years: 37%
11-15 years: 14%
16-18 Years: 2%
The children who were adopted in FY 1999 were adopted by:
Non-relatives: 20%
Foster parents: 65%
Other relatives: 15%
Waiting time to adopt varies depending on the type of adoption and any unforeseeable circumstances that may arise. Estimates of waiting time are:
Healthy infant: 1 up to 7 years
International: 6 up to 18 months
Child waiting in foster care for an adoptive family: 4 up to 18 months
"There are around 100,000 adoptions in America each year. You are proposing to increase the supply of children needing adoption by around a factor of TEN. Show me your evidence that there are even remotely enough prospective adoptive parents to absorb this additional supply."
"Waiting time to adopt...Healthy infant: 1 up to 7 years"
"There are approximately 5 to 6 adoption seekers for every actual adoption."
Presumably, we could increase the number of adoptions by a factor of five based on the wait times and stated demand. Next, factor in the reduction in international adoptions which are likly motivated by the waiting time. Now, factor the number of people who discount adoption because of the time delay. Allow for medically necessary abortions.
It becomes very difficult to argue that we are in any danger of having too many unwanted newborns.
But as we've seen, DonP, the constraining factor is an extremely inelastic supply curve, not demand. Moreover, the pre-Rose "market" for healthy infants was also marked by shortages, indicating to me that there's considerable slack to take up unaborted infants.
We must also add that unfortunate as it is, some significant minority abortions are obtained by women who use abortion as birth control; half of the women obtaining abortions have had at least one before. If abortion were not legal and relatively cheap, these women might explore alternatives, such as more reliable birth control usage.
Again, I'm not saying that the alternative of adoption means we should outlaw abortion; I explicitly denied that in the post. I'm saying that the financial welfare of the children or mothers is not a reason to support legal abortion.
Having poked around a bit, I find no readily available data with an age/race distribution of potential adoptees.
This site has an age distribution and it has a race distribution, but not both:
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/dis/afcars/publications/afcars.htm
So the statistics are still out on this one. But, I'll eat my shoe if the statistics, once located, don't bear out the idea that black babies, of every age, are harder to place than their other counterparts.
However, Jane is clearly misleading on another count. Note her contention that "many of the couples who can't adopt here end up going to China, South America, or Africa for babies."
Africa? As this site indicates, less than 1 percent of international adoptions over a thirty year period (1971 - 2001) were from Africa:
http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/FactOverview/international.html
Don't they teach Chicago MBA's anything about data driven analysis these days?
Vince:
I'm not sure what relevance you think those numbers have to Jane Galt's claim.
The issue is whether adoption is an even remotely realistic alternative to the 1,000,000+ abortions that occur in America every year.
The same website from which you just quoted confirms the blindingly obvious answer: NO.
http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/policy/polfos.html
Demographic data and the sociopolitical factors impacting the adoption of children in foster care suggest that adoption demand will increase dramatically in the near future, far outstripping the current, already inadequate supply of adoptive families.
In other words, even on current projections the number of children needing adoption will far exceed the supply of prospective adoptive parents. And yet Jane Galt is proposing to add around one million additional children needing adoption every year.
No, decon, they've abandonned it in favour of nurturing our delicate little psyches.
As it happens, the couple I knew adopted from Africa. A lot of people adopt from Asia and Latin America.
As we've all found out, it's damn hard to get good statistics on distributions. But from what I know, from talking to friends who've adopted, reading articles on the subject, and listening to my mother, who was a social worker in pre-Roe days, healthy infants without family restrictions of any race get adopted -- though the waiting lists are longer for white children, they're still quite long for non-white infants.
DonP: we're talking about two different populations; the population of familes that want to adopt infants and toddlers, and the population of families that want to adopt ten year olds whose mothers beat them. The supply of the latter is already inadequate; the supply of the former is not, as a moment's reflection on the meaning of a 7 year waiting list would have told you. It is true that almost no one wants to adopt older children, but none of the women who carry their pregnancies to term will be delivering ten year old children, so that's not really germane to the discussion at hand.
Jane wrote: "B) Our crime rate has been higher than, say, Sweden's since long before the welfare state, so the welfare state is, at best, a non-variable."
Think you'll find Finland's murder rate at the turn of the 1900's was one of the highest recorded. (Source: Your employer).
"Women are waiting longer and longer to have babies; as their fertility declines, demand for adoption will rise."
Nope. Declining fertility with age is a overwhelmingly a function of egg quality. We're
Comment got cut off, so here's the remainder:
"Women are waiting longer and longer to have babies; as their fertility declines, demand for adoption will rise."
Nope. Declining fertility with age is a overwhelmingly a function of egg quality. We're
How do you rationalize this disconnect:
(A) There are only 100,000 adoptions a year, so that means that only 100,000 couples/families/individuals want to adopt.
with
(B) Substantial evidence posted in this thread that people have to wait years to adopt, more people want to adopt than ever get to adopt, and that there is a thriving black market for children from outside the US?
It would seem to me to be a staggering disconnect- how can your position be true if people are waiting years to adopt?
The answer is first that there isn't a shortage of people wanting to adopt, but rather a significant barrier to adoption in terms of legal channels, cash, and political battles which have little (if nothing) to do with weeding out the bad from the good adopters but does drastically reduce the subset of the willing down to the very desperate and determined.
The dilemma to be solved would necessarily require action on both fronts, and lowering the barriers to demand on the adoption side would seem the logical thing to start with. Boost demand, and then most of the arguments about "not enough people to support it" vanish.
Of course, most of these rather vehement denunciations of Jane are red herrings, since Jane in the post made no positive prescriptions or threats to abortion rights (to prohibit them by force)...
Argggh. Damn server did it again.
Anyway. We're less than 5 years from ovum freezing being feasible. When that happens, the snooze alarm will be hit on the biological clock -as egg quality is the primary cause of female infertility. You'll be able to harvest and freeze eggs in your 20's for later use in your late 30s, 40s or 50s.
bill carone:
What do you think about the mother selling her rights to another person? In other words, she agrees (and contracts) with another person that, in exchange for X amount of money, she agrees not to terminate and to give up her guardianship to the other person?
BAD idea, IMO. An in-utero bonding process frequently takes place between mother and child later in the pregnancy (which could explain why many poor mothers who carry to term do not choose adoption, and also does further violence to blanket assertions that making abortion a more difficult option would increase the adoption pool by ten times).
We've already seen a few nasty post-adoptive paternity suits, some of which others here have mentioned (rare, thankfully, but still nasty) where birth parent(s) attempted to recover a child they previously ceded to adoption.
Giving the mother an opportunity to contract out the fetus -- which she would presumably do early in the pregnancy for reasons of financial security (what if I carry the baby to term and then there is no one willing to pay?) -- could have very negative results should she have a change of heart later.
Tom:
Anyway. We're less than 5 years from ovum freezing being feasible. When that happens, the snooze alarm will be hit on the biological clock -as egg quality is the primary cause of female infertility. You'll be able to harvest and freeze eggs in your 20's for later use in your late 30s, 40s or 50s.
Well, assuming hormone therapy can do something about that common late-40s/early-50s event by which the monthly friend is ended. After that she can donate to an egg bank or frame them behind a fresnel lens, maybe...
Jane Galt:
DonP: we're talking about two different populations; the population of familes that want to adopt infants and toddlers, and the population of families that want to adopt ten year olds whose mothers beat them. The supply of the latter is already inadequate; the supply of the former is not, as a moment's reflection on the meaning of a 7 year waiting list would have told you. It is true that almost no one wants to adopt older children, but none of the women who carry their pregnancies to term will be delivering ten year old children, so that's not really germane to the discussion at hand.
Wrong yet again. For someone who claims to be a professional journalist, your reading comprehension skills are appalling. Your term "7 year waiting list" is presumably a reference to the statistic that the estimated wait time for a "healthy infant" is 1 to 7 years. A moment's reflection should have told you that this does not mean that the adoptive demand for newborns exceeds the supply, but only that the adoptive demand for healthy newborns exceeds the supply. With reference to your claim that adoption is a realistic alternative to abortion, this fact is meaningless for the following reasons, amoung others:
1. Many newborns are not healthy. For well-understood reasons, babies born to women who didn't want them are particularly prone to suffer from health or developmental problems. Women who have abortions are disproportionately poor, unmarried, uneducated, lacking in health insurance, abusers of drugs or alcohol, and so on.
2. If adoption is to replace abortion, the supply of children needing adoption will increase by around a factor of 10. You still have not produced a shred of evidence to support your claim that the demand for even ideal adoption candidates (let alone all newborns, or all children) is even remotely large enough to absorb this supply.
3. Giving a child up for adoption is a profound emotional trial. As LizardBreath already noted, many of the women who choose or are forced to complete an unwanted pregnancy will choose initially to try and raise their child themselves rather than give it up for adoption, but will later find that they cannot cope with the responsibility of a child. The child will then likely become a candidate for adoption, but because of its age and other factors will be much harder to place with adoptive parents than it would have been as a newborn.
"Well, assuming hormone therapy can do something about that common late-40s/early-50s event by which the monthly friend is ended. After that she can donate to an egg bank or frame them behind a fresnel lens, maybe..."
Already done.
http://library.uchc.edu/bhn/cite/nyt/5718donoreggs.html
Whoever doubts that people really do make the "pro-lifers don't care after birth" argument, I have at least one data point. Go to http://answerguy.blogspot.com and find the comments widget for the most recent abortion post there (probably around January 22, you may need to check the archives).
And please excuse my own response comments there, which in hindsight were asinine.
Brian Doss:
It would seem to me to be a staggering disconnect- how can your position be true if people are waiting years to adopt?
It is obvious. Most people who want to adopt a child don't want to adopt most of the children who need to be adopted.
Let's pretend that we live in the idealized world of your imagination. Let's pretend that every child who would be born in America if it weren't for abortion would be an ideal candidate for adoption. Let's pretend that all these children would be healthy, even though we know that many of them would not be. Let's also pretend that all these children would be able-bodied, even though we know that many of them would suffer from some kind of disability. Let's also pretend that all these children would be developmentally normal, even though we know that many of them would suffer from developmental problems. Let's also pretend that these children would perfectly satisfy the racial demands of potential adoptive parents, even though we know that many adoption candidates are rejected because of their race. And let's further pretend that all these children become candidates for adoption shortly after they are born, even though we know that many or most adopted children become candidates for adoption only months or years after they were born.
In other words, let's pretend that the situation would be the most favorable possible for your claim that adoption is a realistic alternative to abortion, even though we know that's not true.
Now show me your evidence that there are even remotely enough adoptive parents even under these idealized circumstances, let alone under the circumstances of the real world. Just to remind you, we're talking about more than a million children a year. Year after year. More than a million new children needing adoption each and every year. This is, of course, in addition to all the children who are already candidates for adoption.
Show me your evidence.
anony:
and also does further violence to blanket assertions that making abortion a more difficult option would increase the adoption pool by ten times
No one made that assertion. Jane Galt made the absurd assertion that there are enough adoptive parents for all the children who would be born if they weren't instead aborted as fetuses. That would require around 10 times more adoptions per year than currently take place, in a country where there are already far more children waiting to be adopted than there are people willing to adopt them.
DonP, when presented with evidence, you make ludicrous worst-case generalisations to protect your selective misquoting of the data provided. No doubt, some such infants would have health problems; you're assuming all of them will. You also make absurdly self-contradicting statements; we will simultaneously need to find adoptive homes for every child not adopted, but also the mothers will be reluctant to give them up. I have told you why I think that most infants could be found adoptive homes; you torture the data and then demand I provide conclusive proof of a hypothetical. Prove you're not a serial killer, DonP; if you can't offer me conclusive proof, I won't continue the discussion, since I don't talk to serial killers.
Jane Galt:
DonP, when presented with evidence,
You haven't provided any evidence to support the ludicrous claim that I am challenging. All you've provided is evidence that the current demand to adopt "healthy infants" exceeds the supply of them. I asked you for evidence that the demand to adopt children is even remotely sufficient for the supply of them that would be created if all American pregnancies that currently end in abortion were to end in childbirth instead. I'm still waiting for a shred of evidence to support your claim. I assume you have none, which is presumably why you keep trying to change the subject.
No doubt, some such infants would have health problems; you're assuming all of them will.
I never made any such assumption. I specifically said that "many" children would have health problems. Are you under the impression that "many" means the same thing as "all?"
You also make absurdly self-contradicting statements; we will simultaneously need to find adoptive homes for every child not adopted,
I never said that either. You said: "if women having abortions instead carried the fetuses to term and then offered them for adoption, they could almost certainly place each and every baby" [emphasis added]. I am still waiting for even a shred of evidence that they could place even a majority of those babies, let alone "each and every" one of them. Where is it?
And while I'm at it, here's another Jane Galt absurdity:
The practical reasons for abortion have been declining steadily for a century . . . an out of wedlock baby today is a minor embarassment to most women, where a century ago it was socially, professionally, and romantically the end of her life.
You have this exactly backwards. The practical reasons for abortion have been steadily increasing for a century precisely because the ability of women to make choices about the course of their lives, including whether, when and how many children to have, has been steadily increasing. An unwanted child a hundred years ago was far less of an obstacle to a woman's career precisely because very few women even had a career back then anyway. Women were expected almost without exception to have children, to raise children, to satisfy the role of wife, mother and homemaker. Today, women have vastly greater freedom to choose a different course for their lives, which is likely to include fewer children or no children at all.
Some data:
The US birth rate for 2002 was 13.9 births per 1,000 women aged 15-44.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/releases/03news/lowbirth.htm
The US abortion rate is 16 births per 1000 women aged 15-44.
http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/surv_abort.htm
6% of abortions are for medical reasons. (various sites, both pro-life and pro-choice; none I can find disagree)
In other words, you're asserting that adding 15 points to the birth rate (the non-medical abortion rate), when the birth rate is currently at 13.9 - more than a doubling of the number of children per year - wouldn't overwhelm adoption demand. I have a *little* bit of a hard time believing this. 10 or 20 percent, sure, but 107%?
Some adoption data:
http://statistics.adoption.com/persons_seeking_to_adopt.php
Doesn't fit with enough demand, either.
Good stuff Jason. In particular the statistic that "about 2 million women ages 15 to 44 (3.5%) had ever sought to adopt a child. Of these, 1.3 million did not adopt and are no longer seeking. 620,000 have adopted one or more children. 204,000 are currently seeking to adopt."
So women who've been deterred are about 2:1 with those that have succeeded. That would triple the sustainable adoption rate.
It's worth pointing out, though, that if abortion were successfully banned (which is, in itself, hard to imagine), then there would be fewer pregnancies as women tighten up on unsafe sex because they know the safety net has been yanked away.
In any case, the most extreme anti-abortion scenario I can imagine would be a de-Federalization of the legislative authority and its return to the several states; this would result in a patchwork of abortion bans with a large number of states where abortion would still be legal, at least in the first trimester (where the vast majority of abortions happen). These states would be the liberal states, where most Americans live. Women in other states would fairly easily fly to the prochoice states to abort - a $200 flight to a $500 procedure. Only the poorest women, in the most conservative states, would bear children they would not otherwise; and that would only increase the number of adoptibles marginally.
You make a good point with your hypothetical, Leonard. Which states do you think would actually get a ban passed?
I think you'd get Utah and maybe South Carolina and that's it.
Something doesn't make sense about those numbers, Jason. If the two numbers you give are comparable, than there are more abortions in this country than there are live births. Except that your second source says that there are only 254 abortions for every 1000 births. Your first source also says that there were 4,019,280 births in the US. While I've heard conflicting stats on the number of abortions, it's usually between 1M and 1.5M a year, which fits with the 25% stat in the second article. I'm confused.
Figures don't lie, but liars can figure...
Not accusing Jason of lying, but when his stats say there are more abortions than live births in the USA, I think there must be something wrong with his sources.
Don P,
"You have this exactly backwards. The practical reasons for abortion have been steadily increasing for a century precisely because the ability of women to make choices about the course of their lives, including whether, when and how many children to have, has been steadily increasing."
OK you miserable turd, where are your statistics to back this up? Where is your chart from the CDC including the reasons cited for having abortions. Talk about blah, blah, blah.
This is just one assertion you make without citation. With one exception, you have not backed up any of your assertions with a citation. Meanwhile, you have badgered and insulted the host for not citing statistics to back up a hypothetical discussion about whether healthy black children go unadopted due to racsim. A subject you have not bothered to address.
Jim English
Chicago
But I'm not advocating that we ban abortion. I value the mother's right not to have the state telling her what to do with her body pretty damn highly . . . though I recognize, more than most of my acquaintances on either side of the debate, how close a call it is between those two things.
DonP, your logic is grotesque -- the idea that women now have better reasons to terminate their pregnancies because better ends justify worse means . . . well, words fail me. Moreover, the risk to the life and health of the mother, economic wellbeing of herself and her children, her social network and her romantic opportunities from an unwanted child, were far, far higher a hundred years ago than now; it is the conceit of the upper middle class that making partner at a top law firm or MD at a bank, something that perhaps a couple hundred women do every year (and which at any rate largely happen to women outside their prime child-bearing years) are more valuable opportunities than continuing to eat regularly.
Klug - I googled a bit but surprisingly I can't find opinion poll data on pro-life/pro-choice sentiment by state.
However, look at this page for some helpful info on current laws in the states.
Three states have laws declaring that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, abortion is to be prohibited (IL, KY, LA). Moreover, five states have laws declaring their intent to ban abortion to the fullest extent permitted by the Constitution (AR, MO, NE, ND, PA), and three other states have declarations stating their policy to protect the unborn as persons under state law (LA, UT). Three states have resolutions in opposition to the Freedom of Choice Act, a proposed federal law that would codify Roe v. Wade (LA, ND, WV).Of course passing intent laws is one thing, effective laws is another. If the Supremes defederalized abortion, you'd see a tidal wave of pro and anti abortion activism sweep the states, and I am sure, some fascinating politics.
My own experience is this:
My wife and I were unable to have children, so we looked into adoption. The reasons why we didn't choose to adopt domestically are manifold:
1) Believe it or not, in Florida the HHS (or equivalent) organization actively discourages adoption, and actively encourages fostering. They're very up-front about it, too. It's very, very difficult to adopt through the state, here.
2) There are babies available through private agencies, but (at the time) there was quite a lot of media coverage about genetic parents' rights and contacting their kids or even trying to reacquire them years later. We didn't want any part of that. The last time we looked at domestic adoption, the birth mother gets to know everything about you; your income, name, address, you name it.
3) Given all of that, we chose to go outside the country. Given that the United States government is a beaurocratic jungle to get through for citizens, we thought it'd be swell to use that as a shield against the possibility of birth parents contacting us against our wishes.
For a wide number of reasons, we chose China. We now have two children who don't look anything like us, and are the center of our lives. They are our family. It doesn't matter where they're from; it matters that they're ours, and we're theirs.
Pregnant women who were willing to give up their babies for adoption would see them snapped up. The waiting list for newborns is always a long one, and (in Florida at least) the list for older children is nonexistent. We're still skittish about the birth-parents recontacting, and it seems as if a great deal of the older children available in-state are termination-of-custody cases, so one or more birth parents are still out there. We recently began (and terminated) an attempt to adopt a termination-of-custody case, and bailed out because the state wouldn't get around to terminating custody for at least eighteen months after they removed the baby from his carseat, his birth father passed out drunk and draped across him. Not the first offense, either. So, we'd have had to foster him for eighteen months in hopes that the state would do the right thing. Sorry, no. I'll never, ever put much at stake in that sort of bet.
Anyway, my two cents.
Oh, and Don P:
Some people will choose to adopt an unhealthy baby now rather than wait several years for a healthy one. Our first Chinese baby was "special needs", which frequently means that there's something wrong with the child, and they don't have the resources to figure out what. In the case of our first child, it turned out to be cerebral palsy. And we have no regrets whatever, aside from the regret that it had to happen to such a wonderful little girl.
And, in our case, entering a seven-year queue for a baby was never, ever an option for us. To bend the unemployment argument back around, some have elected simply to never enter the market. I've had a lot of people tell me this is, for them, a deterrent to even trying. I doubt there's any sort of data to evaluate whether this is a valid idea or not, though.
Klug and Leonard,
I don't know where to look for this info, but it seems to me that a good indicator would be to see what states had legal abortion back when Roe v. Wade was decided.
Mike Wendt:
Good luck! Our girls are age 7 and (nearly) 3, and from Wuhan and Changsha, respectively. And the end product is really, really worth the paperwork, the worrying and the waiting.
The U.S. birthrate is given as 14.5 births per 1000, age 15-44. However, this doesn't seem to match with the number of women in that bracket, and the number of births.
According to the 2000 census, there were just under four million children under the age of 1, which indicates four million births in the preceding year. If you compute the number of women ages 15-44 (which is what the birth rate is based upon), the total comes to roughly 60 million. If the birth rate is 0.0145 (as given in some sources), the number of children born would be only 870,000. Obviously, there's something I've failed to understand here.
Of course, population growth rate doesn't equal birthrate. But unless immigration of newborns is really, really booming, it's close.
I have no doubt that if abortion were made illegal and if all those babies normally aborted were put up for adoption many of those children would be easily adopted.
And if wishes were candy canes we would all be fat and happy.
1. Even if made illigal, healthy, pro-choice, economically and educationally upper-class women would still be able to get an abortion. Wanna bet me on that. My GYN would do it. Or my best friend, who is an ER doctor, or her friend, who is an OB/GYN. So that removes a small portion of your adoption pool right there.
2. In the 1930s through the 1960s (and I have no idea where to find statistics on this, so I could be wrong)I don't recall hearing about how there were a lack of healthy children to adopt. There was a huge excess if I recall. What makes you think that this won't happen again?
3. Some percentage of all those babies given up for adoption will not be 100% and will not be adoptable. So are we advocating burdoning the welfare system or the state with taking care of these children for the rest of there lives. These lost children with mental or physical disabilities, children born to drug addicts or just born with problems. And how about the children whose parents took care of them for those first, years and then had to give them up, or the kids who are taken away from their parents because they were beaten, raped, mentally abused, locked in a basement, starved or caged? What about them? And yes Jane, I would say that growing up unloved with little hope for your future might in fact be a very good reason to be aborted from the start. Sometimes the kindest thing to do is to allow someone to avoid pain and suffering. I'm also pro-euthenasia.
4. From an article my Grandmother wrote for Contemporary OB/GYN about 15 years ago (and I doubt this has changed) women aged 13-15 are much more likely to have complications from pregnancy than from abortions and it is always safer to have an abortion in the first timester than it is to carry a baby to term. Therefore couldn't you argue that if any women gets pregnant and aborts in her first trimester this is being done to potentially save the life of the mother and that anyone who is 15 or under can have an abortion at any time to protect their own life?
5. Probably it should also be considered that many of the women who get pregnant and who would have abortions would keep their babies as opposed to giving them to "stragers" for adoption. Please discuss the social and economic impact of this on society as a whole.
I think you're making the issue much to simplistic.
Since I completely disagree with the supposition that life, in general, is precious and that abortion is in any way wrong, I see the adoption problem as one of economics and emotions. I find you thesis full of holes and unrealistic. Once again theory does not translate into practice.
On the other hand, if you use the total population, the 0.0145 birthrate gives you just under 4 million, which is spot on. Why do they even bother with the 15-44 age restriction, I wonder?
Slarti-
Thanks. Don't want to turn this into a support group or anything, but thanks.
Amidst all the statistics-bandying about Don P's assertions, I hope it at least registered with some of you than Slarti's and my anecdotal reports are indeed illustrative of significant contributors to the problem of insufficient demand for orphans (does that put in pure enough economic terms?), those being the bureaucracy here and the inability to be sure that the birth parents are out of the picture.
Mike:
No intent to do that to Jane. Feel free to comment on my blog if you want to chat.
Now, re: birthrate:
On the other hand, if you use the total population, the 0.0145 birthrate gives you just under 4 million, which is spot on. Why do they even bother with the 15-44 age restriction, I wonder?
Jane, DonP:
Good debate.
I agree with Jane that there is a large pent up demand for adopting newborn babies and that would take care of at least part the new babies resulting from banning abortion.
But I think DonP has a point that the numbers are out of whack. There is a 7 year waiting list but banning abortion would multiply available babies by TEN. That means that the waiting list would disappear overnight and there would still be a lot of babies to ?spare?. And the next year you?d have another million babies but no longer any adoption queue.
I realize this is a very static analysis but I think that was Jane?s point all along.
I just don?t see with the numbers provided here that there is anywhere near a demand to adopt one million babies every year.
Being a conservative by nature, it's always dismayed me that it's almost a plank in the Republican platform that the very things that might tend to reduce the need for abortions (sex education, availability of contraceptives, etc) are actively frowned upon. I think this is an unintended consequence of Christian morality, but the reality of things is that people are going to have sex, even when they think they shouldn't, and the more they know about reproduction and contraception, the less likely that sexual adventure is going to result in unwanted progeny.
For my kids, sex education is and will be a continual process. As a seven-year-old, my daughter doesn't yet need to know about contraception, but she does know about pregnancy and childbirth. We'll fill in the rest of the details sometime in the next few years and well before fertility is a possibility. Pretending sex won't occur because you view out-of-wedlock sex as being sinful just lacks smarts. While it may (or may not) be true that deeply religious people tend to sin less frequently in that respect, they still do. And the rest of humanity will suffer from policies born out of the hopefulness of those who fancy themselves to be favored by God.
Jane, above in this string you recently posted "But I'm not advocating that we ban abortion. I value the mother's right not to have the state telling her what to do with her body pretty damn highly . . . though I recognize, more than most of my acquaintances on either side of the debate, how close a call it is between those two things."
Funny, but I certainly had the impression over several months that you were against abortion at any time for any reason other than possibly the immediate and one-hundred-percent predicted mortality of mother (and thus infant).
Now me, I'm squeamish and disapprove of third-trimester abortion-on-demand, yet I do think them permissible for lesser medical reasons than fatality - eg anencephalic (did I get that right? Those bodies with only enough central nervous system to [almost] sustain life, no more) and some others.
First-trimester, lightly discourage it and insist on at least a couple of hours discussing options. When I say "lightly", I mean that any counsellor should not try to completely dismiss abortion as one of the available options - no browbeating, breast-beating, holier-than-thou types acceptable. No other restrictions.
Second-trimester, I am still thinking about. More restrictive in some way, but not coercive.
As to the abort-vs-adopt business, for those willing, fine. And some easier way of doing it, and more certainty of a "finalized" adoption actually being final, would help. But poor as the effect of our laws may seem, their intent is largely good. Of course, we all have heard of that famous road surfaced with all good intention...
"2) There are babies available through private agencies, but (at the time) there was quite a lot of media coverage about genetic parents' rights and contacting their kids or even trying to reacquire them years later. We didn't want any part of that. The last time we looked at domestic adoption, the birth mother gets to know everything about you; your income, name, address, you name it."
Just out of curiosity, would you object to any contact? Contact with the child after he turns 18?
I wonder what the optimum rule is for encouraging potential birth mothers to relinquish rather than abort while not chasing away potential adoptive parents. Would leaving open the possibility of contact, either during childhood or after, lead more pregnant women to choose adoption? Is it really that important to some, many, or most adoptive parents that their children never contact their birth parents?
I'm also adoptive parent of 3 kids. From overseas. We tried to adopt domestically but the hassles of severing paternal rights (which of the three named potential fathers should be served with which writs?) proved insurmountable.
I'd suggest that adopting a second kid older than the one you have at present poses some risks. I develop that line of thought in my own journal.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/p_o_u_n_c_e_r/
The Clinton adminstration made a large tax credit available to adoptive parents as an experiment; which has been made "permanent" in the more recent Bush tax cut. About $10K is available to offset the expenses of adoption -- bringing the net costs down to a very doable figure. If you can afford a new car but are willing to buy a used one instead, you can afford to adopt.
Don P, do your calculations, such as they are, take into account that some of the people on the waiting list MIGHT be willing to adopt more than one child? Do you suppose that if the tax credit or other financial support were higher, or better publicized, that more parents might avail themselves of the option? Do you suppose if abortion were to remain legal, but were socially discouraged -- in the same sort of way that we permitted-but-discouraged smoking cigarettes before Bloomberg -- that the "supply" of newborns would still overwhelm the "demands" of parents?
Just out of curiosity, would you object to any contact?
No. Just the kind that comes without asking for permission. Certainly, after she's reached 18 it will then be in the adoptee's hands.
In the case of my kids, though, the likelihood of contact with birth parents is remote in the extreme. They were both abandoned near birth, and there's little information available on either end that could be used to trace them. There are a few downsides to this, but being a parent is much, much more than just contributing genetic material.
It seems most of the commenters realize the non-static nature of the numbers contributing to this issue. Pouncer's point about the tax credit is on point as well - increasing the credit further would encourage more couples to adopt and probably still be cost-effective.
Slartibartfast's latest comment reminds me that in China it's actually illegal to give up your child, so parents with unwanted (girls) usually breast-feed for a couple months, then abandon them to an orphanage. This is essentially a wink-and-nod system, but the important thing is that the legal bond is absolutely cut. That's very attractive.
A last issue that confounds domestic adoption is that most of us want healthy, normal children. Black, yellow, striped, but healthy. Concerns over whether a domestic child was abandoned because mom was on crack or an alcoholic stop a LOT of people from considering this as an option. A system that vetted incoming children and their mothers would go a long way toward encouraging more people to adopt domestically. But how to uncouple the birth parents' rights once and for all, with our legal system the way it is? It's a testament to how big an issue this is that thousands of people go to Russia for children where the first thing they tell you is that fetal alcohol syndrome is a problem there. So even if they're willing to face a health risk above and beyond the unavoidable unknowns, they are often not willing to goof around with the legal issues.
The claim that anybody opposed to abortion must take care of any excess children sounds familiar. It sounds like the claim that opposing Saddam means the US must take care of Iraq and the claim that anybody pro-immigration must take care of immigrants on welfare.
Jason wrote:
"The US birth rate for 2002 was 13.9 births per 1,000 women aged 15-44.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/releases/03news/lowbirth.htm
The US abortion rate is 16 births per 1000 women aged 15-44.
http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/surv_abort.htm"
Jason, your first figure is misquoted; it's 13.9 births per 1,000 persons, not per 1,000 women agen 15-44. The abortion rate (~0.8 million) is around 20% that of the birth rate (~4 million). As reluctant as I am to say it, this makes Jane's point not unreasonable.
On adoption, here's a story about a friend of a friend:
Decide they want to get pregnant. Wife is in late 30s.
Try fertility drugs. Unsuccessful.
Try IVF. Unsuccessful.
Try IVF with an egg donor. Unsuccessful.
Decide to adopt from a foreign country (Georgia). Go through the all the hoops and expenses. Visit Georgia, see the child. Are two days away from signing the adoption papers; then the whole of the adoption agency gets arrested.
Come back from Georgia, devastated.
Couple gets pregnant two months later. No IVF, no fertility drugs.
Couple goes back to Georgia, adopts the georgian child. Which is good, because the child had fallen sick and was in a hospital that couldn't afford antibiotics. He spends a month in Stanford children's hospital (on and off). He's doing OK now I heard, though still low weight for his age.
There's a Hallmark movie in that story.
A question, and apologies if it has been addressed amid some of the flammage above that I admittedly skipped over: Are we talking here about ALL children available for adoption, or only children born in the U.S. available for adoption? Because it seems that talking only about the latter would distort the picture considerably. Purely on the anecdotal evidence, it looks like a fair number of people -- indeed, including at least a few of the adoptive parents who have posted on this thread -- adopted their children from overseas. If we're going to have a serious discussion about what kind of impact placing one million extra newborns into the adoption market is going to have, it seems as though we should consider all of the children currently available to U.S. parents for adoption, not just those born on these shores or currently residing in U.S. foster care or other facilities.
There's a flip side to that question of course, and that is -- how many non-U.S. parents adopt U.S. children?
Anyhow, it's entirely possible that someone addressed this above, and I simply missed it in my scanning. If that's the case, a nudge in the right direction would be appreciated.
Jane, thanks for opening up a very delicate topic. As an adoptee and an adopter, I have had first hand experience with both sides of the abortion/adoption dabate. My parents adopted both my sister and I, as infants, within 2 years of each other. When my wife and I adopted our son through a private adoption, we were on the waiting list with a local Catholic social service agency. The waiting period was 5 years, and once we adopted, we were dropped from the list. We would have liked to adopt at least one other child, but at 40, we are now to old for a domestic adoption. I believe there is a large pent-up demand for infant adoption that is not reflected in the current statistics. Most adoptive couples I've spoken with would have liked to adopt more than one child, and other childless families have been discouraged from adopting domestically by the limitations on participation and the cost. Where I live, the most popular private adoption attorney charges approximately $25,000 for an infant adoption.
Jane -
like a stopped clock, Don P is on occasion, close to right once in while. His claim that American women today face more negative consequences from an "unwanted" child than did women of one hundred years ago bears examination. Your catalog of the consequences to a woman of one hundred years ago is more correctly a catalog of the consequences of single motherhood which is not the same as bearing an unwanted child.
Plenty of married women with husbands who were functional providers had children they didn't really want to have; their life prospects would generally only change for the worse in degree, not in kind. These days, when having a career outside the household is an option for most women, and the prospect of divorce is significant, a married woman having an unwanted child does find more options foreclosed.
In response to GT, Don P and others -
Jane has not said that she thinks banning abortion would result in ~1m new babies/year. I thought she had said that, but she has not. She has not said exactly what she thinks might happen.
Jane has mentioned that she thinks there would be somewhat fewer abortions just based on fewer women using abortion as their safety net.
As Kate and others have pointed out, even a full abortion ban at the Federal level would not stop all abortion. Illegal ones would continue (I could line one up in a matter of days; cost might be more of an issue on the black market, but that's just money; what's 6 months of your life worth?). Flying or driving to Canada or elsewhere is now easier and cheaper than it has ever been. A round trip to Toronto would cost me $240 as I write this. Surely, if America banned abortion the Canadian market would expand to take up the slack.
And as I previously stated, I think a full abortion ban at the Federal level is not going to happen. The most that is likely is a Supreme Court which (correctly, IMO) views abortion as a 10th amendment power "not delegated to the United States by the Constitution". Defederalizing abortion would probably result in abortion bans (or de-facto bans) in many states, but surely not in NY, MD, VT, CA, and WA. Add one state in the South and one in the Midwest and just about everyone is within a day's drive of an abortion.
Winging it completely, I'd guess that the worst case scenario would end up in a few hundred thousand more births per year; and most of those, the women (and/or their families) will end up keeping. Perhaps 200000 extra babies, of which only 100000 will end up as adoptable.
On the demand side, there's demand for at least 200000 extra adoptions per year. I don't think 1 million is likely, but there I think there is probably a lot of untapped demand that would appear if adoption were cheap and easy. Perhaps 400000 per year.
Anthony,
All that is true; but how many abortions are performed on married women? I don't know the answer, but I would expect it to be a small percentage.
Michelle Dulak,
While this is a wholely unscientific bit of anicdotal evidence I know six people in my life who have had abortions. Two were when I was a teenager and so were they, Two were in committed relationships at the time of the pregnancy, but they were not yet ready for marriage and children (one of the women ended up leaving her boyfirend for other reasons about a year later and one of the women ended up married to her boyfriend and they now have a child) and two were married, one had never wanted children and she ended up getting an abortion AND her tubes tied and the other was married, had two children and had just bought a house and gone back to work and didn't want a third baby.
With the execption of one of the teenagers, who was in her fourth month, they were all fisrt trimester abortions.
I think that this unscientific evidence shows that there is a wide variety of reasons why women in virtually all demographics get abortions.
Kate,
I think that this unscientific evidence shows that there is a wide variety of reasons why women in virtually all demographics get abortions.
I'm sure you're right. My point, in response to Anthony, was that comparing the consequences of bearing an unwanted child to married women now and married women a century ago is somewhat beside the point if (as I suspect) most women who abort aren't married.
I remain amazed that there are still a million abortions a year in this country, given that (1) we are constantly being told that abortions are getting harder and harder to obtain; and (2) it has never in the history of humanity been easier for a woman to avoid becoming pregnant. Can anyone suggest an explanation?
Given how dangerous childbirth was for mothers 100 years ago, compared to today, an unwanted pregnacy in 1904 carried considerably more risk.
Good thread here, but I would just like to add one point.
Speaking as a pro-life conservative, it seems to me that economic consequences relating to abortion are not at all important in determining whether abortion is acceptable or not.
If we as a society decide that life begins at conception and that abortion is the killing of a unique human being, then arguments about welfare or poverty increases only cheapen human life.
To say that abortion is wrong, but that I don't want to pay more taxes to end it or suffer the company of more poor people is a terrible statement to make.
The related statement that it is better to abort people than to raise them as children in a ugly situation is incredibly arrogant and cold-hearted. Having a hard life is not a good thing, but certainly it is preferable to death? And, why should we have the right to decide that someone is better off dead?
From an article my Grandmother wrote for Contemporary OB/GYN about 15 years ago (and I doubt this has changed) women aged 13-15 are much more likely to have complications from pregnancy than from abortions and it is always safer to have an abortion in the first timester than it is to carry a baby to term. Therefore couldn't you argue that if any women gets pregnant and aborts in her first trimester this is being done to potentially save the life of the mother and that anyone who is 15 or under can have an abortion at any time to protect their own life?
According to ex-abortion doctor Caroll Everett, it was (at the time of her practice) probably NOT safer to have an abortion that carry a pregnancy to term. But rarely would deaths associated with abortion be reported as such, for a number of reasons -- non-obvious cause of death to name one; the political machinery, to name another.
To give a random example, suppose the abortionist was clumsy or just in a hurry (not all that improbable, especially at a dedicated clinic -- what does ANY good worker do when his/her income is based on sales?), and nicked the uterine wall. That wound subsequently infects and, given the blood saturation of the uterus at the time, the infection enters the bloodstream. A couple days later, the woman dies of septicemia. That death is going to be, shall we say, a bit less obvious than a maternal death caused directly by carrying a pregnancy to term; and in the event an investigation/autopsy is even carried out, what doctor (save for a vocally prolife one) would want to risk his medical reputation to say the death was caused by an abortion?
So there is potentially a huge reporting dillemma in assessing whether abortion is truly a (physically) "safer" alternative.
Another problem is that the abortion process unnaturally screws with the maternal hormone cycle and the organs of reproduction, hence can increase the possibility of future miscarriage. So, a woman who chooses to abort an unwanted pregnancy now may find it more difficult to maintain a wanted pregnancy later.
Still a third issue to consider is that a not-insignificant proportion of women who abort report a trauma experience common enough to have its own name, PASS (post-abortive stress syndrome). Oddly enough some women who have aborted rape pregnancies have reported PASS symptoms far outlasting the rape trauma, so apparently in extreme form it can be quite severe.
But I think DonP has a point that the numbers are out of whack. There is a 7 year waiting list but banning abortion would multiply available babies by TEN. That means that the waiting list would disappear overnight and there would still be a lot of babies to ?spare?. And the next year you?d have another million babies but no longer any adoption queue.
Wrong on two counts, I believe. Jane Galt brought up one counterpoint: If abortion were to be more stigmatized that it is now, odds are good that rational people currently using abortion as an ex-post-coitus birth control would take other forms of birth control more seriously, resulting in a drop in the numbers of unwanted pregnancies.
Second counterpoint is the in-utero bonding process I brought up earlier. Some "unwanted" pregnancies may become wanted later in the process.
The final impact of these two possibilities, and bearing in mind that Jane Galt nowhere proposed eliminating abortion, is quite uncertain -- although I think we can fairly assert that the the actual increase in the number of adoption candidates would be considerably less than ten times the present.
Being a conservative by nature, it's always dismayed me that it's almost a plank in the Republican platform that the very things that might tend to reduce the need for abortions (sex education, availability of contraceptives, etc) are actively frowned upon. I think this is an unintended consequence of Christian morality, but the reality of things is that people are going to have sex, even when they think they shouldn't, and the more they know about reproduction and contraception, the less likely that sexual adventure is going to result in unwanted progeny.
The reality of things, at least as relates to public education, is that people have MORE sex when "aggressive" sex education programs with contraceptive promotion are implemented, and LESS when strong abstinence curricula are implemented. I don't have the relevant cites handy at the moment but AFAIK this has been demonstrated quite consistently.
And is it really so surprising? We are, after all, talking about authority figures making presentations to children -- sure, they may be reaching their late teens in the case of high school, but they're also only just beginning to reach full cognitive maturation.
The body has achieved basic sexual capability and the hormone overdose may be saying Go for it! Mate like dogs!, but many of the people in the target audience are still not truly ready to evaluate the emotional complications and consequences of their actions the same way as, say, a person in their early twenties, who has had more time to learn who they are and what they really want from life. (There are, of course, always exceptions both ways.)
The "some will have sex anyway" argument is weak. By way of hyperbole some people will also rob banks in spite of criminal statutes to the contrary, but that doesn't justify abridging or revoking the relevant laws, because the consequencs of doing so are considered to be worse.
Michelle -
I'm not sure why there are still so many abortions when it is as easy to avoid getting pregnant, though I have a few hypotheses based on anecdotal evidence:
Most other forms of birth control are unpleasant for some fraction of people. Many women experience undesireable side effects from The Pill (any version) or other chemical alternatives. IUDs are scary, and do have bad side effects in some number of women.
Not all forms of birth control are terribly reliable: Condoms don't fit all men well, and some are particularly prone to breakage, especially Avanti polyurethane condoms.
Society doesn't encourage personal responsibility in any field; there's almost always some sort of fallback no matter how you screw up. Abortion is the fallback for sex, but there are fallbacks which are more-or-less available for financial screwups, job screwups, etc.
Something that I'm still not sure I believe, but apparently girls and young women in very Catholic environments are more likely to have abortions as their primary means of birth control due to an odd mindset. Taking the pill is a continuing sin, and being prepared with condoms shows an intention to sin (by having extramarital sex), while having an abortion is a one-time sin, rather than a continuing sin, and possibly forgiveable.
Lastly, while the number of abortions appears to be remaining constant, the population is growing, so the rate seems to be declining, at least slowly. (Anyone have statistics to the contrary?)
Anony-mouse,
You say:
"The reality of things, at least as relates to public education, is that people have MORE sex when "aggressive" sex education programs with contraceptive promotion are implemented, and LESS when strong abstinence curricula are implemented. I don't have the relevant cites handy at the moment but AFAIK this has been demonstrated quite consistently."
Um, are you sure? I recently ... I think it was something I was listening to on NPR... I can't remember...but I am sure it was in the past month or two, where the exact opposite numbers were thrown about. In schools where condoms were accessable and all birth-control options were discussed the prenancy rates were HALF that of schools that only had an abstanance program in place.
Nathan,
You said:
"If we as a society decide that life begins at conception and that abortion is the killing of a unique human being, then arguments about welfare or poverty increases only cheapen human life.
To say that abortion is wrong, but that I don't want to pay more taxes to end it or suffer the company of more poor people is a terrible statement to make.
The related statement that it is better to abort people than to raise them as children in a ugly situation is incredibly arrogant and cold-hearted. Having a hard life is not a good thing, but certainly it is preferable to death? And, why should we have the right to decide that someone is better off dead?"
Many of us don't think life begins at conception. We think you're wrong. But because you have "faith" that you are right you essentially force your religious, moral and social beliefs on my body. Goody. If it's not a person, it's not a person and therefore I have no guilt about discussing the socio-economic ramifications to keeping abortion or preventing it.
I think most people, except the most wacked-out die-hards, who are pro-choice would say that they have no problems with first trimester abortions, second trimester abortions are a grey area and third trimester abortions are awful unless there is a serious problem (and I don't simply mean danger to the life of the mother.) But, and here is the difference, we're willing to let people follow their own moral compass. You, on the other hand, thinks life begins at conception and there is nothing I can do to change your belief in that.
So since I am not bound by the confines of a faith in something I have no proof of, I think I will continue to argue the social and economic implications of abortion v. adoption.
anony-mouse:
I don't necessarily disagree with your counterpoints.
But they share a common flaw.
They are both part of a 'dynamic' analysis. And once we go down that route this whole debate ends since nobody has a clue as to what will happen. It becomes a war of who can come up with the better sounding scenario.
That's why I (and Jane in her original post) stuck to a simply static analysis. Jane made the point, correctly, that there is a pent-up demand for adopting babies.
DonP made the point, correctly, that the numbers show that if all the women that have abortions had the babies and gave them up for adoption they would overwhelm demand.
That's all.
Prohibiting abortion wouldn't increase the adoption supply anywhere near ten-fold. A mother generally has a different attitude toward her own newborn infant, even if, when having previously considered an abortion, she accepted the pro-choice premise that her first-trimester fetus was the moral equivalent of a wart.
As a commentor noted above, the relinquishment rate is currently between 1% and 2%, and even pre-Roe was only 19%. So the net increase would likely be in the neighborhood of 10,000 - 200,000.
I am also a practicing Catholic; and, I am unalterably opposed to abortion on demand . . . also fail to understand why, when an unmarried woman elects to have unprotected sex, gets pregnant and keeps the child, I now have the obligation to support not only the woman but also her child(ren).
I seem to recall Jesus saying something in re: children having to do with millstones, and suffering, and something, but I may have been drunk at the time.
The reality of things, at least as relates to public education, is that people have MORE sex when "aggressive" sex education programs with contraceptive promotion are implemented, and LESS when strong abstinence curricula are implemented.
Perhaps -- although I think you're mistaken, and I believe recent statistics show exactly the opposite effect from what you claim -- but would you rather have more teens having sex with fewer getting pregnant, or fewer having sex with a greater proportion becoming pregnant?
Here's a report (PDF file) that suggests that abstinence-only programs are not nearly so effective as you claim, and seems to conclude that a combination of abstinence encouragement along with contraceptive education is the most effective. Here's testimony by Rep. Henry Waxman that claims that the Bush Administration is massaging the data. Googling "abstinence only effectiveness" brings up a lot of data, none of which appears to offer hard data that it actually works.
Raving:
Prohibiting abortion wouldn't increase the adoption supply anywhere near ten-fold. A mother generally has a different attitude toward her own newborn infant, even if, when having previously considered an abortion, ...
This is irrelvant. Jane Galt's argument is that adoption is a realistic alternative to abortion. The argument is based on the premise that the child will be given up for adoption. Obviously, in cases where the child is not given up for adoption, adoption is not an alternative at all, and her argument fails for that reason.
As I said earlier, an unwanted child born from an unwanted pregnancy that the woman would rather have aborted is at substantially higher risk of harm from neglect or abuse by its mother than a wanted child. The risk applies both during pregnancy and after. So encouraging--let alone compelling--women to complete unwanted pregnancies and raise the child themselves would produce many more abused and neglected children.
GT: Fair enough. But in this case I think the static analysis hands us a meaningless figure, given the ramifications. And I, neither, wish to pursue the dynamic analysis because there are too many unknowns.
Kate: That could indeed be the case. However, there are other issues to consider besides pregnancy itself, such as STDs, a number of which can be transmitted through or in spite of common contraceptive devices; and also the emotional consequences of engaging in sexual liasion before a person is cognitively prepared to evaluate the choice. IMO neither of these is well served in aggressive sex-ed curricula.
Phil: Thanks for the additional data. I should note that while I personally view abstinence-only as the soundest choice ideologically, an abstienence promotion + contraception education is probably the more realistic. The so-called "comprehensive sex education" programs are my primary target of criticism: if an authority figure saturates hormone-charged youths with the sights, sounds, and paraphanelia of sexuality -- while placing little or no empahsis on the negative consequences that can and do occur and are always avoided by abstaining -- can much good come of it?
"As I said earlier, an unwanted child born from an unwanted pregnancy that the woman would rather have aborted is at substantially higher risk of harm from neglect or abuse by its mother than a wanted child."
Got any stats on how women who were forced into carrying an orginally unwanted pregnancy to term (by parents, religion, lack of access etc.) actually feel about their children once born? Do the vast majority hate them or love them? How do the kids feel about being alive? (just kidding -- of course I know that's all irrelevant).
There's a lot of child abuse out there as it is, despite abortion on demand. What percent of those were unwanted pregnancies (in which the mother just somehow forgot to abort)?
"Kate,
Sorry to hear your life is worthless."
This sort of comment is garbage.
Getting back to the original issue... the fact of the matter is, we can trivially conceive children beyond the point of zero aggregate societal utility. Therefore, it IS legitimate to argue in terms of comparative value of children. An aborted child should not be evaluated purely in terms of what that particular life would have been, because the existence of that child will likely discourage the conception and birth of another child at least indirectly. A fair comparison would have to take into account the value of that other potential child's life! Another potential child that could very well be more wanted, etcetera.
I agree with Steven Pinker when he says that there isn't an answer to be "discovered" to the abortion problem; instead we need to decide on a somewhat arbitrary line. And I am convinced the arbitrary line should be after conception because I don't believe there is any fundamental distinction between the potential of an aborted embryo and the "opportunity cost" potential of a child that would have existed if the first embryo was aborted. Third trimester, there's a distinction because there's a functioning human nervous system that's being destroyed (and yes, I'm implicitly stating where I'd draw the arbitrary line), but first trimester? It's just potential.
Third trimester, there's a distinction because there's a functioning human nervous system that's being destroyed
Forms and begins preliminary function (brain waves) towards the end of the first trimester, IIRC.
I still like the Dilbert solution:
Catberts Center for Reproductive Liscensing:
Catbert: "So you want to have a kid---well you'll have to take a test to see if you would make responsible parents. Here it is.
When your child starts crying do you:
a: Feed it
b: rock the child in your arms
c: slap it
Couple: duhh... c: slap it
Catbert: Wrong...you can't have a child....and you will have to leave a few body parts at the front desk..Good bye." (all paraphrased. I don't have a copy of the actual cartoon)
Whose life is it anyway -- and why stop at birth?
When I was educated (many years ago) at University, I (being an engineer) took a (required) survey course of/in Western Literature -- "Comp Lit" in those days of yesteryear.
One of the things I was taught in our readings of Homer's The Odyssey was that the ancient Greeks operated in what was called a "Shame" culture -- as opposed to our modern "Guilt" society -- the difference being that back then an individual was worried about bringing shame to his "house" whereas we would worry about breaking a "moral" code and feeling guilty about it.
Nowadays -- what with our "victims" culture -- we depend on secular laws (and their comparative existance and/or lack of enforcement) to determine right from wrong. Our society confers (or discovers -- take your pick) equal rights for all citizens -- even before they "come of age".
Oh, yeah, parents still have some rights -- but they're diminishing.
So, let's put the abortion discussion into this context.
If parents had the right (dare I say -- the responsibility) to kill their rotten children up until the day they reach majority, would the world be a better place?
For sure, this would end the abortion debate (why stop at birth?). And it would make almost ALL children better hehaved (Your parents REALLY CAN KILL YOU!)
Remember the movie, Taras Bulba -- when Yul caps Tony Curtis for consortin' with the pretty Polish girl?
The "some will have sex anyway" argument is weak. By way of hyperbole some people will also rob banks in spite of criminal statutes to the contrary, but that doesn't justify abridging or revoking the relevant laws, because the consequencs of doing so are considered to be worse.
Well, that would be a decent comparison if we were even contemplating making robbing banks legal but morally frowned upon. But that's not the case. I could also turn it around, and say that maybe people would rob banks less often if nobody talked about it, and if guns were difficult to obtain. But let's not go there.
Look: I'm not saying that we should have sex education without any sort of moral evaluation, or even without any commentary about emotional issues. I'm saying that pretending that kids won't have sex if you don't talk about it does not work. It didn't work a century ago, and it sure as hell won't work today. Today's kids are going to figure things out on their own without adult guidance if you don't teach them in schools or at home. And of course, any sex education has to include thorough discussion of risk factors, including STDs and that contraception is never 100% effective. Personally, I'd think that STDs would be a big deterrent, but it's been a while since the teenage hormones were on the rampage.
Just to be clear, my personal view is that kids shouldn't be having sex. But it's also my personal view that legislating morality doesn't work. Morality is personal, and should be addressed in person, not as part of some local ordinance. Telling people that they can't do something you believe is immoral will have exactly zero impact on their morality. If you're truly a Christian (not saying you are, anony-mouse; this addresses the religious right) then it's far more useful to discuss and possibly convert than to make it illegal for people to do things you regard to be sinful, and get only resentment in return.
My views on the whole abortion thing a retty fundamentalist : from humanist side. We pass through this universe but once so there had better be a damn good reason for curtailing someone else's visit.
Rather more to the point about adoption is something that is mentioned by Jane, race. One of the things that has me howling with rage at the Social Services in the UK ( where I'm from ) is that mixed race adoptions simply do not happen. The attitude appears to be that it is better for a child to suffer through life in a children's home ( and for a description of that read Rod Liddle in www.spectator.co.uk a couple of weeks back ) than to be part of a family that does not share the same racial make up of the child.
Raving:
There's a lot of child abuse out there as it is, despite abortion on demand.
Then why do you want to create even more child abuse by bringing even more children into the world that are not wanted by their mothers, or anyone else?
Anony:
Wrong on two counts, I believe. Jane Galt brought up one counterpoint: If abortion were to be more stigmatized that it is now, odds are good that rational people currently using abortion as an ex-post-coitus birth control would take other forms of birth control more seriously, resulting in a drop in the numbers of unwanted pregnancies.
Sorry, but this bait-and-switch isn't going to work. The ludicrous, absurd, ridiculous claim that Jane Galt made in her post was that it is "almost certain" that "each and every" additional child that would be born if it weren't for abortion would be adopted.
The effect of increased stigmatization of abortion on abortion rates is a different issue. Increased stigmatization of abortion probably would reduce the rate of abortion. But it would have other effects as well. What type and magnitude of stigmatization are you proposing?
Anony:
According to ex-abortion doctor Caroll Everett, it was (at the time of her practice) probably NOT safer to have an abortion that carry a pregnancy to term.
When was “the time of her practice?” 1800? Abortion is one of the safest surgical procedures available. The risk of death from completing a pregnancy and giving birth to a child is about ten times higher than the risk of death from having an abortion. Health and safety considerations overwhelmingly favor abortion over completion of a pregnancy.
Still a third issue to consider is that a not-insignificant proportion of women who abort report a trauma experience common enough to have its own name, PASS (post-abortive stress syndrome).
There is no credible evidence that abortion poses a significant risk of emotional or psychological trauma for most women. The risks to a woman’s mental health from completing an unwanted pregnancy, and especially from being compelled to complete the pregnancy, are far greater. “Post-Abortion Syndrome” is a non-existent medical condition dreamed up by anti-abortion fanatics as a tool in their relentless war to criminalize abortion.
Michelle Dulak:
I remain amazed that there are still a million abortions a year in this country, given that (1) we are constantly being told that abortions are getting harder and harder to obtain; and (2) it has never in the history of humanity been easier for a woman to avoid becoming pregnant. Can anyone suggest an explanation?
Abortions are not getting harder and harder to obtain. They're getting easier and easier. The real (inflation-adjusted) cost of abortion has been declining for decades. Women are also increasingly financially independent from husbands and boyfriends, and so are increasingly able to fund the costs of abortion (including, if necessary, travel costs) themselves. The advent of medical abortion through drugs such as RU486 and the "morning-after" pill, which were virtually unknown in America as recently as a decade ago, are also dramatically increasing access to abortion.
Abortion remains common in America primarily because of intense opposition--often by the same groups and people who oppose abortion--to programs and policies designed to increase the use of contraception. The Catholic Church is an obvious example.
Don P:
The ludicrous, absurd, ridiculous claim that Jane Galt made
Geez, looks like somebody woke up on the wrong side of the Internet this morning. Jane's answered all your ravings, and still you steam, certain that she is secretly one of Those People Who Want To Turn Back The Clock.
Looks like you need refresher courses in logic AND how to treat a lady, son.
the argument comes down in the end to a question of whether you value the mother's right to control her own body, or the fetus's right to get born, more highly.
Exactly. And by any libertarian definition, affirmative rights over one's own body must trump presumptive claims on another's, even in cases where there was no choice.
As an aside, I really like the "forget personal information" button. While I don't actually want to use it, it is good to know that, should I desire it, I can forget personal information on demand.
Then why do you want to create even more child abuse by bringing even more children into the world that are not wanted by their mothers, or anyone else?
That's a good case for mandatory sterilization, but I don't think it's quite complete. Do go on.
Don P, do your calculations, such as they are, take into account that some of the people on the waiting list MIGHT be willing to adopt more than one child?
Yes. Show me the evidence that there are a million additional people each and every year willing to adopt a child? Or 500,000 additional people each and every year willing to adopt two children? Or 800,000 additional people each and every year willing to adopt one child and 100,000 people each and every year willing to adopt two children?
However you slice it, there isn't the slightest evidence that the demand for children to adopt is even remotely large enough to absorb an additional 1,000,000+ children needing adoption every year, year after year. As the report I cited earlier states there aren't even enough adoptive parents now. The number of children in foster care is already increasing e